AI Guild Validated CV

How do I Start a Data Career in the 2020s?

How you get more relevant job interviews.

Here is actionable support for finding a 1st or 2nd role in Data Analytics, Data Science, Data Engineering, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, and MLOps.

To start a data career, you need to achieve two things.

1. Get invited by companies to an interview regularly.
2. Get through the interview process and secure an offer — better two offers to have some bargaining power.

The AI Guild insights help you reduce your search time by half and cost by as much as 90%.

Practitioners developed the AI Guild Validated CV

We have looked at 300+ CVs of AI Guild members and run 100+ career coaching sessions in small groups and individually for the 1100+ AI Guild members.

The AI Guild is an international and diverse practitioner organization — from entry-level to lead and CxO. It is committed to the highest quality standards for technical competence, ethical behavior, business impact, and benefits to society.

Free online events

The AI Guild has run 50+ online #datacareer events with more than 10,000 participants — providing information, advice, and support.

Firstly, we run an event series for early-stage practitioners on starting a data career, getting hired, and developing a professional career. You can sign up for the next event here.

Secondly, for PhDs and postdocs, we offer a tailor-made event series to achieve a transition from science to a data role in six to nine months. You can sign up here.

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How did we get here?

In 2012, “Data Scientist” was declared the sexiest job of the 21st century. DJ Patil and Thomas Davenport had good reasons for touting this new role, and the developments have been exciting. By 2016, worldwide, 50,000 practitioners were identified. By 2020, we counted half a million practitioners. Less than 1% are AI researchers. So 99% are advancing AI adoption in modeling, engineering, product, and infrastructure.

If you want an excellent first role, you need a sense of how the field is evolving.

What do the 2020s hold?

The defining data career trends of the next decade are:

1. Organising AI at scale, which means bigger teams deploying use cases with confidence.
2. The differentiation of data roles leading to distinct career paths in data analytics, data science, data engineering, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing.
3. Increasing specialization meaning that Seniors and Leads must combine data proficiency with domain expertise.

You decide your first data role

You will have noticed that companies differentiate between Data Analysts and Data Scientists. As a Data Analyst, you handle data. You produce reports, visualizations, and dashboards that are relevant to the business. As a Data Scientist, you use Machine Learning algorithms for modeling. The difference is that the Data Analyst uses data to help humans make decisions, whereas the Data Scientist helps automate some of those decisions.

The data economy is not about AI only

There are more roles requiring data literacy. If you have been handling data, and have experience in Python or R already, then a data career in AI is within your reach. If you do not have prior programming experience, you need to know that many more data roles do not require programming skills. These data roles are equally crucial as companies must become data literate.

Handling your challenges at the entry-level

Most issues have been reported again and again. Here are some suggestions for you.

1. If job seekers often struggle to frame their skillset, how do you present your technical and business skills?
2. If you have little or no relevant industry experience, then how do you emphasize your data experience?
3. If it is sometimes more sensible for companies to upskill current employees to machine learning because of their domain experience, in which industry would you gladly accept an entry-level role?
4. If most employers still are not good at hiring matching talent, how do you clarify what you are looking for?

The Validated CV by the AI Guild

Three questions for your career entry

Your skills and ambition must match the data role you want.

For example, if you have experience processing data but little or no experience with ML algorithms, then the best and fastest route likely is a role as an analyst or engineer.

Please be aware that companies often need analysts and engineers more urgently than Data Scientists. Also, engineers may get paid more.

1. Which data role is your best choice?
2. At what type of company do you want to work?
3. Which domain or industry is yours?

Engineering roles typically are accessible to candidates with prior experience, for example, in IT, data processing, and computational science disciplines.

So, which data role is your best choice?

To be successful in your first role, it matters which type of company you are working at.

Do you prefer the relative security of corporate jobs? Perhaps you want to work in a startup? Have you considered consultancies?

If you know people working in these firms, you can speak to them about the workplace.

The clearer you are about which type of company works for you, the more likely you will be successful.

Ten years ago, data professionals often crossed over from one domain to the next. Entry barriers were low. A computational biologist could get hired by an autonomous driving company for her competence in image processing.

As data analytics and machine learning are productionized, specialization increases. Disease detection from medical images is very different from fraud detection in financial data.

It sets you on a viable career path if you can articulate where you see your professional future.

What the AI Guild can do for you

The AI Guild runs free online events, provides examples and insights that you can use, and offers a paid support service: The Validated CV with AI Guild imprimatur that gets attention from hiring managers and human resources.

Why have a Validated CV?

The AI Guild Validated CV ensures that you have the best possible presentation of all four essential elements of a CV.

• Technical skills: Your reader needs to see and understand your technical profile at a glance.
• Business and organization skills: Having the required technical skills is excellent. So do other candidates. Your next company is looking for someone that knows how to contribute to the business process and outcomes.
• Data experience: Your chance to shine by communicating in simple terms what kind of data you have handled to what effect.
• Search and mission statement: You can get to “Yes!” in just three sentences if you do this very well. “Yes,” you get the interview.

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Experience shows that a validated CV reduces your search time by half or more. If you do your CV first, you typically reduce your out-of-pocket expenses and opportunity costs by 90% or more.

Use the website

To kick-start your data career, please visit datacareer.eu

Download the slide set

You can also download an event slide set on SlideShare.